IT’S THE GREAT RACIST PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN!
https://claytoonz.com/2018/10/23/its-the-great-racist-pumpkin-charlie-brown/
There’s something seriously wrong in this nation when the guy throwing about the word “socialism” to scare people define himself as a nationalist.
In the past, Trump said he didn’t want to use the word “nationalist” as he thought the “Trump brand” was a stronger label. Voting for a label instead of a leader is scary by itself, but this is how Trump sees himself, even after becoming president.
But, last night in Houston at one of his hate rallies, with extra hate because Ted Cruz was there, he finally defined himself as a nationalist. And to think, we had tiki torch Nazis marching in the streets before this. Steve Bannon is so happy.
Today, Trump said it’s not a code for “white” nationalist, and that he’s unfamiliar with that term and “nationalist” is a word that hasn’t been used much. Really?
It’s not just a word, but an ideology that’s been used by every dictator, strongman, and authoritarian throughout history, with the first coming to mind being Adolf Hitler. It’s always accompanied by a fear campaign of “us vs. them.” In Trump’s case, brown people.
At this point I have to wonder, when do these people just openly admit they’re Nazis?
Personally, I’d rather be a socialist than a nationalist.
The great election-eve middle-class tax cut began not as a factual proposal, but as a false promise.
When President Trump abruptly told reporters over the weekend that middle-income Americans would receive a 10 percent tax cut before the midterm elections, neither officials on Capitol Hill nor in his administration knew anything about such a tax cut. The White House released no substantive information. And although cutting taxes requires legislation, Congress is not scheduled to be back in session until after the Nov. 6 elections.
Yet Washington’s bureaucratic machinery whirred into action nonetheless — working to produce a policy that could be seen as supporting Trump’s whim.
The mystery tax cut is only the latest instance of the federal government scrambling to reverse-engineer policies to meet Trump’s sudden public promises — or to search for evidence buttressing his conspiracy theories and falsehoods.
The Pentagon leaped into action to both hold a military parade and launch a “Space Force” on the president’s whims. The Commerce Department moved to create a plan for auto tariffs after Trump angrily threatened to impose them. And just this week, Vice President Pence, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House all rushed to try to back up Trump’s unsupported claim that “unknown Middle Easterners” were part of a migrant caravan in Central America — only to have the president admit late Tuesday that there was no proof at all.
Trump’s election owes something to the surge across the U.S.’s southern border in the summer of 2014. Tens of thousands of women and children crossed the border in only a few weeks. Many of those who entered in 2014 remain in the United States to this day, even after their cases have been negatively adjudicated, because they have disregarded their removal orders and vanished into the vast U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants.
The strong U.S. job market is again attracting low-wage workers. After a dip in 2017, illegal crossings of the southern border in 2018 have returned to their levels of 2016—and are running well ahead of 2015. If the thousands of people in the caravan successfully cross the border, lodge asylum claims, and are released into the U.S. interior pending adjudication, many more seem likely to follow.
More:
For Trump’s opponents, the caravan represents a trap. Has Trump’s radical nativism so counter-radicalized them that they have internalized the caravan message against any border enforcement at all? If yes, they will not help immigrants. They will only marginalize themselves—and American politics will follow the European path in which anti-immigration parties of the extreme right cannibalize the political center.
If liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals will not do. I’ve been pounding the drum for this warning since the European migration crisis accelerated in 2013. The warning holds as true as ever—and now it’s coming home.
Democrats still seem likely to win the House, because Trump is so effective at driving away voters. But Democrats are blowing the political opportunity of a lifetime. They seem to be getting little traction in red states and now may end up losing ground in the Senate. Instead of drawing disaffected voters away from the G.O.P., they seem to be pushing Republicans back to Trump.
It has now become evident that Republicans are better at politicizing cultural issues and Democrats are better at offering economic benefits to those who are struggling. If you think voting behavior is primarily motivated by material appeals, the Democratic strategy is fine. But if you think it’s motivated by cultural identity, a desire for respect, a sense of what’s right, loyalty to a common story, the Democratic strategy leaves a lot to be desired.
These days, culture is more important than economics.
Seven thousand people are marching towards the US border, expecting to cross it because they want a better life — and the Democratic Party can’t figure out what to say about it. David Leonhardt of the NYT is frustrated with them:
For the most part, Democrats have tried to https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/divided-democrats-struggle-to-answer-trumps-claims-on-migrant-caravan/2018/10/22/2064869e-d61d-11e8-83a2-d1c3da28d6b6_story.html?utm_term=.0a18f03ce66f (avoid the issue). Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leaders in Congress, have essentially urged their colleagues to ignore it. “The president is desperate to change the subject from health care to immigration because he knows that health care is the number one issue Americans care about,” they said in a statement over the weekend. “Democrats are focused like a laser on health care and will not be diverted.”
This strikes me as wishful thinking. The caravan is a huge story. It led the NBC Nightly News broadcast yesterday, to take one example. Politicians in the final two weeks of a campaign can’t persuade people to ignore a huge story.
The smarter approach for Democrats would be a few simple statements of the obvious, meant to display both realism and decency, along the lines of: This is a country of laws. We are not going to admit thousands of undocumented immigrants traveling in a caravan. We do not have open borders. But we are and have always been a country of compassion as well, and we are working with Mexican authorities to protect the safety of these men, women and children.
The problem with ignoring the issue is that it plays into the Republicans’ midterm strategy. It makes Democrats sound squishy and insecure on immigration. It makes it sound as if Democrats aren’t really sure whether they believe that this country should have immigration laws.
Well, do they? Look, of course Trump is demagoguing, but he’s not wrong about how soft the Democrats are on this fundamental issue.
Similarly, it took the Senate Democrats and their media allies savaging Brett Kavanaugh to wake up Republicans and independent conservatives to the reality that the Democratic Party is so sold out to identity politics that it would eagerly trash due process if the accused is a white male. The Republicans did not make the Democrats do that, any more than they’re making the Democrats whiff on the caravan. That’s who the Democrats are in 2018. They cannot or will not take a strong stand on what ought to be a fairly easy issue: that America has the right to control its borders.
In the closing stretch of the 2018 campaign, the question is no longer the size of the Democratic wave. It’s whether there will be a wave at all.
Top operatives in both political parties concede that Democrats’ narrow path to the Senate majority has essentially disappeared, a casualty of surging Republican enthusiasm across GOP strongholds. At the same time, leading Democrats now fear the battle for the House majority will be decided by just a handful of seats.
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